Level density and mechanism of deuteron-induced reactions on Fe54,56,58

Deuteron elastic cross sections, as well as neutron, proton, and a-particle emission spectra, from d + Fe-54,Fe-56,Fe-58 reactions have been measured with deuteron beam energies of 5, 7, and 9 MeV. Optical model parameters have been tested against our experimental data. The fraction of total reaction cross section responsible for the formation of compound nuclei has been deduced from the angular distributions. The degree of discrepancy between calculated and experimental compound cross sections was found to increase with increasing neutron number. The nuclear level densities of the residual nuclei Co-55, Co-57, Fe-55, Fe-57, Mn-52, and (54) Mn have been deduced from the compound double differential cross sections. The Gilbert-Cameron model with Iljinov parameter systematics [A. S. Iljinov and M. V. Mebel, Nucl. Phys. A 543, 517 (1992)] was found to have a good agreement with our results.